


Auld Lang Syne

by thisissarcasm



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-19
Updated: 2012-01-19
Packaged: 2017-10-29 18:59:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/323078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisissarcasm/pseuds/thisissarcasm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock Holmes returns to London on Christmas Eve three years after faking his death, and attempts to reunite with an old friend.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Auld Lang Syne

**Author's Note:**

> With a loving nod to "Doctor Who," only without the happy ending.

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,  
And never brought to mind?  
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,  
And auld lang syne?

For auld lang syne, my dear,  
For auld lang syne,  
We'll tak a cup o' kindness yet,  
For auld lang syne. –Robert Burns

 

Sherlock stood at the edge of the curb where his cab had left him, taking a moment to suck in a breath of chilly nighttime air. The homey block of neighborhood was adorned with Christmas lights wherever its residents could reach, lining walkways, twirling around small fenced-in yards, highlighting windows high above the street. A light but increasingly steady snow had been falling over London for most of the day, and by now had formed a glittering, powdery layer that reflected the twinkling of lights. Each door varied in color and was adorned with a wreath. Sherlock easily picked out the families on the block with children by the dozens of footprint patterns in the snow and the tracks they made up the walkways to the front steps of the condos.

The world’s only consulting detective lingered for a moment longer at the curb, and dug his hands into the pockets of his coat. He was already damp from the falling snow, and he shivered ever so slightly against the cold. He had come from parts of the world that were warmer, and returning home to places more familiar involved a picturesque scene, but somewhat jarring feeling.

The house that was of particular interest was situated in the middle of the block, decorated tastefully but cheerfully. The railings that led up to the steps and front door were lit up with white lights. There were no footprints in the snow of the tiny yard, and the fine dusting along the footpath to the door was largely undisturbed.

As he strode up the walkway, he considered what he might say, and came up with nothing. He glanced downward to the well-worn welcome mat at the front door, and then back up at the wreath hung just at eye-level. He turned back to survey the street, and sighed when he saw that his cab had already gone, leaving him with no choice.

He rapped sharply on the door four times, and waited. He adjusted his coat and scarf. He could hear footsteps somewhere on the other side of the door, distant at first but growing closer with each passing second. Seconds felt like years now.

“If that’s more bloody carolers, I’ve got a water pistol, and I will-...” The door yanked suddenly open and John Watson stood on the other side, wearing a horrendously ugly Christmas jumper with a green reindeer print. He was wielding a water pistol that he kept aimed at Sherlock as his mouth fell open in silent disbelief.

Whatever threat John might have uttered was lost somewhere with the rest of his voice, and the two men stood staring at each other in silence. John’s eyes were wide and for a moment, Sherlock could see the color draining from his face even in the unpredictable glow of Christmas lights that surrounded them.

Sherlock’s first thought was how gray John’s hair had become. He appeared thinner, with more frown lines than he remembered, and yet he was still very much the same John that Sherlock’s memory had preserved so carefully and for so long. Sherlock realized that his heart was pounding, and he could imagine the thoughts racing through John’s mind, ranging from relief to anger and everything in between.

He had not seen John since the cemetery. Three years on the move might have caused the memory to fade if he had been anyone else, but to Sherlock, each moment, each syllable, each sensation was as new to him years later as it had been on that day. That momentary, fleeting, stupid feeling to call out to John. To tell him everything. To explain. To do anything make him stop crying. That feeling that he had crushed just as quickly as it emerged.

“Sherlock.” The word seemed to echo out over the yard and into the night, drawing him back to the present. John swallowed and blinked as though somehow unconvinced that Sherlock was real, and Sherlock waited for his former flat mate to sort through his thoughts.

“Hello, John,” he said, unable to bear the quiet between them any longer.

He could see John flinch visibly at the sound of his voice, and there was that old look again, the one he had come to hate so much so very long ago. John’s eyes were filled with that begrudging disappointment that always came when Sherlock missed the mark on something involving sympathy or sentiment, only this time, it ran that much deeper.

John pursed his lips, and considered. “You’re alive.”

Sherlock tried to break a smile, and couldn’t tell whether he managed it. “And a happy new year.”

John looked Sherlock over as though still uncertain as to whether his mind was playing tricks on him. He did not smile, and Sherlock hadn’t expected him to. He could already see that anger was winning out over everything else running through John’s mind at the moment. And then, without warning, and with the accuracy one might expect of a soldier and a crack shot, he aimed the water pistol and shot Sherlock directly in the face.

“Might have had that coming,” Sherlock muttered, wiping his face clean with the sleeve of his coat.

“Three years, Sherlock. Three bloody years,” John snapped. Sherlock realized that his former blogger had decided on anger for the moment – John’s ears had begun to go red and there was something unpredictable and coldly focused in his eyes.

“I owe you an apology,” Sherlock admitted. They were words that sounded foreign coming from his mouth, but for once, he was saying them not because of expectations, but because he meant them. Truly mean them.

“An apology? Sherlock, we buried you. I’ve spent three years thinking my best friend was dead and you’ve been off doing God knows what and you couldn’t be bothered to send so much as a text?” John was nearly shouting and Sherlock took it all in without a word – partially because he knew that he deserved it, and partially because he knew that John needed to say it.

“It’s complicated,” he said, “and I did what was necessary.”

“Necessary. Good. Yeah,” John said, shaking his head. “Sorry if I’m not quite seeing it that way right now. Just had a dead friend drop by on my doorstep on Christmas Eve to say hello.”

Sherlock Holmes was not a man of sentiment. He understood the chemicals that came with attachment and the psychological need for human contact, and perhaps he was even a victim of both whether he wanted to be or not. He would have preferred it, he had realized rather quickly, if he didn’t feel anything. Yet somewhere along the way, his body truly had betrayed him and that heart that Moriarty had been so certain of longed for home: for Baker Street, for cases ran down and solved in grimy alleyways, for his flat mate and best friend who never doubted him.

That was the worst of it. Even after his supposed death, Sherlock had watched from afar as John – and others, of course – continued to insist upon his legacy. Upon defending his name. No voice had been louder than that of his flat mate, branded a fool by some, and even an accomplice by others. But none of that had mattered to John Watson.

Time and again, John had used his blog to defend his supposedly lost friend, all the while, Sherlock guessed, grieving to the best of his capabilities. Sherlock had tried to do much the same. He did not ask about John not because he didn’t care, but because caring was the disadvantage that had brought him to all of this in the first place.

And now, it was Christmas in London, and the battle was all but won. And for the first time in three years, Sherlock Holmes allowed himself to care, to swallow his pride and to contact his brother for the information he needed in order to force himself to John’s doorstep, all without any idea of how the other man might react.

“I saw you jump, Sherlock,” John said when Sherlock didn’t respond to his well-warranted shouts. “I watched them bury you. You were dead.”

“And I needed the world to believe that,” Sherlock said. “I had no choice.”

“And I needed the world to believe that you weren’t a fraud,” John said. “That you were-…”

John faltered, if only for a moment, and Sherlock saw it. Part of him wanted to comfort John somehow, but his instincts knew better than to do so at the moment. John glanced down at his feet for a moment, and then back up at Sherlock.

“I needed them to believe you were a hero,” John said. “I know you don’t believe in them. But I had to.”

“I lied to you, John,” Sherlock said. He had cried on the rooftop and perhaps on other occasions since then, but he would never admit it aloud to anyone. There were nights when he had thought he wouldn’t survive, when he had taken lives in the name of his own safety and of the safety of those he cared for. Those were nights he would have much preferred to forget.

“I don’t think that begins to cover it,” John snapped.

“I’m not a fraud,” Sherlock said. “But you never believed that anyway. Not for a second.”

John shrugged. “I know you. Or thought I did, anyway, until about four minutes ago.”

“I’m still the same man,” Sherlock told him.

“John Watson, I’ve told you a thousand times to stop shooting at carolers!” A female voice rang out from somewhere behind John, and Sherlock saw something in John’s expression change at the sound. There was the sound of footsteps again in the flat somewhere behind John, and a moment later, a blond woman in an equally horrendous Christmas jumper appeared in the doorway.

“Um.” John glanced from the woman at the door, and then back to Sherlock.

“Is everything alright?” she asked, giving a polite but slightly confused smile to John as though to ask, Should I be calling the police?

In the time it took for John to fumble and for the woman joining him to ask the question, Sherlock had long since put the pieces together. They both were not only wearing ugly Christmas jumpers, but matching ones. A glance at John’s left hand gave further proof, and then a glance to the blond woman’s hand told Sherlock everything he needed to know: that John had not only left Baker Street, but now had a wife.

“No, it’s…fine,” John said finally, and Sherlock could tell that his former flat mate was very quickly growing overwhelmed by the entire situation.

“Just an old friend of John’s stopping by to say hello,” Sherlock said, perking up as best he could. “And you must be Mrs. Watson. Lovely to meet you.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name,” John’s wife said. Sherlock glanced her over in an attempt to somehow deduce information about her – his sources back home in London had not mentioned that John had married. And yet something gave him pause, as though stopping his brain from making the necessary connections to draw conclusions about her. Something about her face, still smiling and friendly despite not being sure of the situation at hand, clouded his thoughts and filled him with a chilly feeling that had shockingly little to do with the cold night air.

“Sorry,” John said, shaking his head as though suddenly pulled back to reality. “Mary, this is-…”

“Dodd. James Dodd. An old schoolmate. Just passing through London for the holidays, thought I’d drop by and wish the famed Doctor Watson a happy holiday,” Sherlock said, extending his hand. He did not look at John as he spoke the words.

The woman apparently called Mary took his hand, and shook it. “Mary Watson. Lovely to meet you. So you must know Mike Stamford, then?”

“How could I forget Mike? He did me a great favor quite a while back.” Sherlock managed a smile, and he let go of Mary’s hand.

“We were just about to sit down to dinner. There’s plenty, if you’d like to join us,” Mary said. “I always love hearing stories about old friends of John’s. They’re all so exciting.”

“I have no doubt of that,” Sherlock said. He broke Mary’s gaze, and stole a glance at John, who looked quite as though someone had punched him directly in the gut. “But I’m due at my brother’s for Christmas dinner, and I’m already running late. Perhaps some other time, then.”

“If you’re sure…” Mary said, offering one last time. Sherlock could read nothing but kindness and some measure of intelligence in her eyes.

“Another time,” Sherlock repeated. He checked his watch, and rolled his eyes. “I really must be going. My brother isn’t one to be kept waiting.”

“Merry Christmas, Mr. Dodd. Sorry to dash, but I think my kitchen is minutes from being on fire,” Mary said, and she laid a gentle hand on John’s arm. She seemed unaware of the partially stunned expression on her husband’s face, and Sherlock waited until she had disappeared back inside the flat before settling his gaze back on John.

“You neglected to mention a wife,” Sherlock said once he was sure that she had gone.

“You neglected to mention being alive.” There was no anger in John’s voice anymore, and the awkward moments of conversation that had passed seemed to have drained him completely.

Sherlock sighed, and jammed his hands back into his pockets. “Merry Christmas, John.”

“So that’s it, then?” John asked.

“Is what it?”

“You turning up on my doorstep, telling me you’re alive, and then getting angry with me because you missed out on a few years. The world didn’t stop because you were gone, Sherlock, no matter how much it felt that way,” John said.

“I’m not angry,” Sherlock lied. He was angry, but it wasn’t anger with John. It wasn’t even that old anger at Moriarty, a bored and desperate man who had quite literally turned his world upside down. No, this was the worst kind of anger, the kind that tore away at him when his mind grew quiet and the reality of the world he had created for himself set in: this was anger at himself. He had spent three years in hiding, drawing out Moriarty’s friends one by one until there was no one left, and nothing to do but go home.

Something foolish in him had been convinced that he would have a home of some kind to go back to that wasn’t a guilt-born stay in a spare bedroom from Mycroft, or an empty flat granted to him by a stunned and more than likely weeping Mrs. Hudson.

John sighed, and shook his head. “You don’t have to go. At least stay for dinner.”

They stared at each other for a moment, and it was one of many silent conversations they had conducted throughout their friendship. John could read anger in Sherlock’s expression just as easily as Sherlock could read the discomfort in John’s. And yet their anger and discomfort, though separate, carried the exact same meaning: “I can’t spend a meal pretending you’re an old schoolmate.”

“Will I see you again, then?” John asked.

It was the same question Sherlock was silently asking, and he sniffled and bristled a bit in the cold. “I’ll be around. Best to lie low for a bit, for safety’s sake. Might see if lodgings are still available at Baker Street, if Mrs. Hudson will still have me.”

“I have some of your things,” John said, motioning back into the house. “The skull is packed safely away. Mary said it creeped her out a bit.”

“It hardly matters,” Sherlock said. “Three years without anyone alleviates the need for conversation.”

“I see,” John said, and Sherlock registered a bit of hurt in his expression. He regretted what he had said instantly, but his own anger – however increasingly misdirected – would not allow him to apologize again for the moment.

Sherlock shrugged, and gazed back toward the street. He could catch a cab if he walked a few blocks, and from there, he would find his way to Mycroft for the time being. He cast one glance back to John, and finally managed a weak, half-hearted smile.

“Merry Christmas, John,” he said.

“Merry Christmas, Sherlock,” John said, giving a defeated shrug.

And so Sherlock Holmes mustered what energy and strength he had left and turned his back on the door of the flat. He was unaware of the sensation of snow crunching underneath his feet, nor was he aware of the sound of Christmas carolers shrieking out songs perhaps a few blocks down. He paused for a moment to watch the Christmas lights blink against the snow, sucked in a deep breath, and made his way back down the footpath to the street. He did not look back again, not even when he heard John close the door.


End file.
